Squishing of widescreen format

[DoctorStopMo]

Hello, I am a computer graphics artist, and have made some movies that I want to put on DVD for professional purposes. I'm sorry if this has already been answered, but I did a forum search and found the reverse of my question answered (16:9->4:3). The problem I have when using ULead DVD Movie Factory 3 is that it takes my AVI files, which have a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, and compresses them to fit 4:3 format. The picture looks quite "squished."

I hope that someone can help me resolve the issue. A friend of mine suggested that I use VirtualDub (which I have) to make a conversion of the 16:9 format so that the AVI is 4:3 and has the black bars on top and bottom (if that makes any sense) so as to preserve the ratio of the video. I should also note that I have Adobe Premiere 6.0 or 6.5 (can't remember which), and I don't have experience with any other DVD burning software, but I might be willing to use something else if it is easier (and not overly expensive ). Any help would be great appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[DarrellS]

>>The problem I have when using ULead DVD Movie Factory 3 is that it takes my AVI files, which have a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, and compresses them to fit 4:3 format. The picture looks quite "squished." <<

You might try VSO DivXToDVD to convert the AVIs to DVD, VIDEO_TS folders with VOBs and other essential files. I was having the same aspect problem trying to convert from AVI to MPEG2 and this program solved my problem.

It's a free program that you can find in the tools to the left.

[guns1inger]

Look at something like Tmpgenc or CCE basic to encode the video correctly first, so DVD Movie Factory doesn't have to. If DVDMF doesn't handle 16:9 footage (which appears to the case), look at another authoring package that will.

[DoctorStopMo]

Hey, thanks for the tips! To get it 16:9, do I just set Aspect to 16:9? Also, I neglected to mention, I have Nero that came with my DVD/CD-RW drive. Can it burn the VIDEO_TS folder onto my DVD?

[DarrellS]

Hey, thanks for the tips! To get it 16:9, do I just set Aspect to 16:9? Also, I neglected to mention, I have Nero that came with my DVD/CD-RW drive. Can it burn the VIDEO_TS folder onto my DVD?

If you use VSO DivXToDVD, it will keep the aspect ratio at whatever the original file is. That is why I mentioned it. I was using TMPGEnc and it was screwing up the aspect ratios and since I didn't have a clue on the the settings options I needed to use, I decided to try something easier. Besides, TMPGEnc takes forever to encode to MPEG 2 while VSO DivXToDVD writes the VOBs to a VIDEO_TS folder in about 40 minutes.

I don't know about Nero.

[canadateck]

Shouldnt Ulead respect the 16:9 Video? Maybe you had a setting wrong? Or maybe upgrade to Ulead Move factory 4?

[DoctorStopMo]

Thanks again, DarrellS . Canadateck, I was unaware that there was a Movie Factory 4, but even if there is, I am not sure I will be upgrading. Movie Facotry 3 is woefully lacking in features. I believe I've explored its options, but have found no 16:9 preservation. I talked to someone who has more experience with it than I, and he said that he didn't think it respects 16:9, either.

Thank you all for your help .

[tphaggerty]

MF2 (and I think) MF3 have a hidden flag (I think in the .ini file) that allows you to directly access the MainConcept encoder that MF3 uses. I am pretty certain that you can then set the output aspect ration to 16:9.

I am almost certain I got the tip from the forums here, maybe someone else remembers it exactly. Search for MovieFactory & mainconcept.

[SHS]

DVD there not in ture 16:9 frame size in fact there in 4:3 and no natter what you do you still going end up with squished picture when it being display on 4:3 TVset but with 16:9 widescreen DVD the ifo just tell the DVD Player stretch or zoom depend on your output when it being display on 16:9 widescreen TVset.
Your best beat is to look at more Advanced DVD Author tools like DVD-lab Pro, Ulead DVD Workshop, etc.

[tphaggerty]

Sorry, SHS, you are just wrong! If you have 16:9 source and specify 4:3 output, it will be "squished" on both 4:3 and 16:9 sets. If you specify 16:9 output, on a standard 4:3 set, you will get a letterboxed 16:9 picture. On a widescreen TV, you will get a full widescreen picture.

The 16:9 setting tells the DVD player what the pixel aspect ratio is. I have a Sony HC42 camcorder that is 16:9 widescreen. I create all of my videos using 16:9 in, 16:9 out and they play quite nicely on a standard 4:3 TV (letterboxed, of course).

Most DVD players let you specify both the type of TV you have and how to play a DVD that doesn't match. For a normal TV playing a widescreen DVD, you can normally select "letterbox" (which shows 16:9 in a letterbox - bars at the top and bottom), "crop" (which cuts off the sides of the picture to show it full height) and sometimes other options depending on the player.

Finally, if you have already encoded the video as 4:3, you can use something like Restream to change the MPEG header to specify 16:9 output without needing to reencode.

[wayne421]

The 'squishing' you describe is normal, not an error. It's called anamorphic widescreen.

If you have a 4:3 TV, set your DVD player to 4:3 letterbox and all DVDs encoded in anamorphic widescreen will be automatically stretched and letterboxed.

If you have a 16:9 TV, be sure the TV and the DVD player are set to 16:9 mode and the image will fill the screen completely without black bars on any side. Most software DVD players on your PC will recognize this and stretch the image correctly as well.

The 'squishing' is a GOOD THING. If you encode the image and force 4:3 letterboxing (black bars on top and bottom), it will look fine on a 4:3 TV, BUT, and this is a big 'but', on a 16:9 TV the image will be either A) stretched out so everything looks fat, or B) a tiny image in the very middle of the screen with black bars on all four sides. Which of these that will actually happen depends on the settings in the 16:9 TV menu.... FYI, the software DVD player on your PC will have black bars on top and bottom also as the black bars will be part of the image itself.

Check out these pages for more info:

http://www.dvdweb.co.uk/information/anamorphic.htm
(this one has an animated explanation)

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/index.html

http://www.widescreen.org/widescreen.shtml

Hope this helps.

-W

[DoctorStopMo]

Okay, wait, I think I may have confused things a bit. Sorry if I did... the movies I want to put on DVD are rendered just like what you'd see in a widescreen movie (is that 16:9? I thought that's what it was, but the links above say that movies are 2.35:1?). When I play the .avi on my computer, it looks fine - I get the black bars on top and bottom. But when I encoded it and burned it, there were no black bars, and the faces and such were elongated due to the picture being squished.

Do the solutions posted above still work?

[wayne421]

Assuming you burned it as a DVD, and are playing it on your set-top DVD player, be sure the unit is set to '4:3 letterbox' in the menu. This should automatically stretch and letterbox the image. If this is already done, then it's possible the encoding software may not be setting the '16:9' flag on the video when it's squishing it (which would be totally ludicrous but not impossible).

And to answer your question, widescreen ranges from 1.78:1 (classic 16:9), all the way up to 2.35:1, which is just a 'wider' version. Unfortunately, with anything wider than 1.78:1(16:9), you will still get small black bars even on a widescreen TV.

-W

[guns1inger]

A lot of older, cheaper authoring apps, did a simple resize, which would give the results seen here. If the original has an OAR higher than 1.78:1, then the results are neither 16:9 nor 4:3.

Your best bet is to get a standalone encoder (tmpgenc is good quality but slow, CCE basic is also good quality but much faster, although it doesn't have the range of filters tmpgenc has) and a good authoring package (tmpgenc DVD author, DVD Lab). These don't cost the earth, and give you much finer control over the outcome.